Trial Run (14 page)

I
'm going after her.”

“Joss, no, wait.”

“Woman, you got one choice. One. Either you help me or I toss you out the way and find somebody—”

“I'll help you. Calm down.”

Joss was not a big man. But there was a new quality to him now, a murderous cold that darkened the chamber's energy. He did not raise his voice. He spoke in little more than a rasping whisper. But the man's other nature was laid bare. The same nature that had stained his personal file with the six men who had tried to take him down in a bar fight. All six had been blooded members of a San Diego gang. Joss had been the only one to walk away. But the bar had been filled with the gang's buddies, and they all claimed Joss had started the fight. It was a bogus charge, but the SD police had been forced by strength of numbers to file charges. Which was how Joss had wound up standing in the center of the monitoring room, breathing deadly danger. His two comatose buddies had come to Reese by similar routes.

The security chief said, “Take it easy.”

Joss did not even glance at Jeff. “I'll give you easy. You rise from that chair, you'll find out easy death can come your way.”

“Stay where you are, Jeff. Joss, look at me.”

“My code is my code. I don't leave a buddy behind.” Joss did not raise his voice. “I've got two mates downstairs lost to comas. I didn't know enough to go back for them. I do now. Elene needs me and I'm going.”

“Of course you are. And I'm going to help you.” Reese kept to a similar calm, something she would never have thought possible under the circumstances. “I'm glad to see you think it's important to be there for your team. Really. But first there's one thing we need to do.”

“There's nothing happening here but me going out and bringing the lady home.”

“This is about saving her, Joss. We need to debrief the survivors. Do you see? We're in uncharted territory here. We need to find who the enemy is and where he's hiding. You with me?”

Joss decompressed slightly. Enough to say, “We need to hurry.”

“I know.” She said to the security chief, “Bring the crew up here.”

“But—”

“Do it, Jeff. Fast.”

But as the security chief passed through the side door, Karla pointed through the observation window and cried, “She's coming out!”

Joss moved faster than Reese thought humanly possible. When Kevin and the rest of her crew started to follow, Reese snapped, “Stay where you are.”

They watched Joss leap down the stairs and fly across the room and scoop up Elene, who clutched at him frantically and sobbed so hard her body convulsed.

Reese was still watching when Jeff brought the four crew members into the room. She said, “I want you to tell me what just happened.”

“It was
amazing
.” Consuela was alight now, almost singing the words. “I went out there—”

“I could
smell
you,” Eli said.

“I knew you were there! I went to the safe, and I read the note, and I felt you reading it with me! How amazing—”

Consuela stopped speaking because Reese stepped in close enough to freeze her solid. “Calm down. I want you to listen very carefully. We've had a crisis. We don't know how, but the agent we sent to monitor you almost didn't make it back. Now, I want you to skip over how cool everything was, and how great you feel, and
focus
. Can you do that? Okay. Now tell me what happened after I told you to come back.”

Eli was the first to answer. “I did exactly what you said. Came out, stayed downstairs for a second, then took off. Got to the palace, knew exactly where the safe was, went in, read the note, then you called me home. I came. End of story.”

“Good. Anybody feel otherwise?” Reese saw how the girl grew sulky. “Look at me, Consuela. No, not like that. Those days are over. I'm not the cops and you're not in trouble. We're a team. You're
vital
to our work. Raise your face. Good. Now tell me
exactly what happened
.”

“I left the palace like you said. Then something happened and I started to move away.”

“When precisely did this happen?”

“You said come back. I came. I was almost inside the room down there. I felt like it was just up ahead. Then something called to me.”

“Who?”

Consuela shrugged. “I got
no
idea. I don't even know if it was a
who
at all. But . . .”

“Tell me.”

“It sounded like my own voice. Kind of, anyway. But different.” She shrugged a second time. “I can't say it any better than that.”

“I heard it too,” Eli confirmed. The other pair nodded. “Kind of.”

“Consuela's voice, or your own?”

“Mine. But now, I don't know, it wasn't me. It was like an echo. But deadly.”

Reese noticed Kevin and the others closing in but resisted the urge to snarl them away. “Describe the danger zone.”

The two kids who rarely spoke shared a look, their gazes hollow. Eli said, “Like a giant tornado turned on its side.”

“More like an octopus,” Consuela said, trying hard to keep her voice steady. “All these different arms, wanting to suck me in.”

“For one moment, it was all I could see,” Eli recalled.

Consuela said, “I felt like I was being dragged away. Not dragged. But it was easy to go. And it was so totally hard to hear you.”

“I got sooo scared,” one of the other kids said softly.

“But you're here now, and it's all good,” Reese said. “Tell me what happened then.”

“The other person showed up.”

“Was it Elene? Look down through the window. Was it her?”

“I'm telling you, I don't have idea one.” Consuela sounded certain enough about that. “I didn't actually see anything except that thing waiting to eat me.”

“But this other person was there.”

“Oh, totally. I could smell her. Or him.”

“Me too,” Eli confirmed. “I thought it was an angel.”

“What happened then?”

“The other person said, ‘Go back.'” Consuela shrugged. “I went.”

Reese turned back to the window. She watched Elene clench Joss in tight and repeat something over and over. Reese said, “Turn on the speaker. I want to hear her.”

Over and over and over, Elene said one thing. “Thank you.”

Joss clearly felt uncomfortable with being cast as the hero, when he had done nothing except offer to put his life on the line. But he stayed where he was, locked in her frantic embrace, and said, “I'm here and you're safe. It's done.”

But Reese knew the man was wrong. The problem was not behind them.

In fact, the danger was only just beginning.

L
et me get this straight.” Kevin Hanley leaned against the monitor station to Reese's right. To her left, Karla's chair was empty. Through the glass Reese could see her down on the floor, prepping Joss. Reese wanted to be down there as well. But she knew Kevin was going to raise a stink. And this was something she needed to handle herself.

Kevin went on, “You're sending the guy into a red-alert situation, and for what? To rescue a woman who is
already safe
?”

Reese replied, “You're too locked into the twentieth century. Isn't that something you have to tell your computer geeks?”

“We're talking about a man's
life
.”

“Actually, it's two lives.” Reese had never been affected by other people's anger. It had been one of her earliest traits. Her mother had found it absolutely infuriating, how Reese had never shown any response to shouts or fury or even spankings. Her reaction to rage was uniform and cold. Just like now. “I want you to take a deep breath. And calm down.”

Kevin started to snap at her. But something in her expression gave him the clarity to ease off a notch. “This is
serious
.”

“Listen carefully, because this is absolutely crucial to what we're facing.
Time isn't
linear.
”

He blinked. “That's just theory.”

Reese turned to where the crew huddled beside Jeff. They were wrapped in blankets and drinking coffee. That was another common result of transiting, the sense of communal weakness once the initial high wore off. Some felt cold, others simply disconnected from reality. As though a strong wind might separate them permanently from their bodies. The blankets were pashmina, a silk and cashmere blend, soft and reassuring. The coffee was hot and sweet and strong.

Reese said to the four, “Tell this man how long you were out there.”

Eli replied, “Days. Weeks.”

Consuela could not quite suppress her shivers. “Longer.”

Kevin said uncertainly, “So the sensations were intense enough to distort perceptions. It happens all the time under live fire.”

“This isn't just an awareness issue, Kevin. Time
changes
.”

He didn't like it. But he was listening intently to her now.

“We haven't conducted controlled experiments to prove this because we operate under the gun. Maybe later. But not now, while the colonel is breathing down our necks. All I can tell you is, every debriefing, every transit, every trial, the results are the same. Time as we know it ceases to hold control over the matters at hand.”

Reese stopped, struck by the sudden thought that she needed to insert the instruction into her initial commands for the transit crews to hold to a proper perspective on time. Or not. At least to control this like they did their destination. She made a note to herself on the pad. When she looked up, Kevin was watching her intently. She had to think a moment to remember where she'd been headed. “Okay. So what we're facing is this. When Elene made it back, what was the first thing she did?”

“She could have said it because he was there in the room—”

“Come on, Kevin. We're talking about a highly trained CIA agent with years on the clock. You're suggesting Elene was so totally shattered by a guy being there to hold her she falls apart?”

Kevin did not speak.

“Elene
thanked
him. She was desperate. Why? Because he
brought her back
.”

Kevin was still mulling that over when Karla said over the speaker, “We're ready down here.”

As Reese started for the door, Kevin demanded, “What are you going to do?”

“That's simple enough. I'm going to make it happen.”

When she entered the transit room, Karla greeted her with, “It was a mistake to let Kevin observe us.”

The transit room's central pillars effectively split the room into two long segments. The pillars held the electronic cables, fiber optic lines, and controls that linked the chairs to the monitoring chamber. Reese reached over and switched off the mike feeding the control room's loudspeaker. “Full marks on lip. Failing grade on subtlety.”

Karla's face reddened. But she held her ground. “You're the one always going on about secrecy.”

Reese did not mind her objection. In fact, she welcomed having a reason to focus momentarily away from the danger they faced. Because the threat was both real and extreme. There was a risk she was trading one seasoned operative for another. Her best. She replied, “What is Kevin's responsibility here?”

“Research into quantum computing.”

“Come on, Karla. Do you really think the head of this ultra-secret and ultra-expensive facility is some aging engineer? One whose remit is overseeing a group of nerds operating on the fringes of reality?”

“His title is a name on a door,” Karla replied. “He wasn't permitted into our section until you invited him.”

“Do you really think the government would stick us with computer geeks working on something with a zero success rate and a timeline stretching into the next century? Kevin Hanley is into something as secret and as potentially huge as our deal. My guess is he's working on cryptography. Which means he's a professional keeper of secrets.”

“You don't know that.” But Karla sounded uncertain now.

“What I know is, the last time Colonel Morrow showed up, he wasn't here to pull my string. He was here to talk with Kevin. Far as the colonel is concerned, we're just a sideshow. Somebody he's planning on shutting down when I travel to Washington. But Kevin's group is totally safe. Why is that, do you think?”

Karla shrugged. “The bodies in the clinic are our guillotine.”

“Colonel Morrow is your typical officer,” Joss Stone said, listening carefully now. “Officers have a different word for a man down. They call it acceptable losses.”

Karla frowned at the floor and did not respond.

Joss bent down and fastened his leg and waist straps. He lay back and said, “Morrow isn't shutting you down, not when you tell them what we've done here.”

“Maybe not. But what happens afterward?” Reese kept her eyes on Karla. “You haven't worked with Washington. I have. And one thing I know for certain is this. We need allies. People who will make sure we get credit for our successes and protect us when we fail. We've got a roomful of failures that won't be wiped away just because we bring in the goods. I'm also thinking the colonel is going to be intensely unhappy that we succeed. Why? Because he's already been prepping his superiors, telling them what a bunch of losers we are. We need allies to make sure our success isn't buried, and us with it. That's why Kevin is standing up there watching us argue.”

Joss grinned. “You got a way with a point.”

Reese looked down at him and wished she could return his smile. She reached over and turned the loudspeaker mike back on. Then she said, “Your primary objective, soldier, is to make it home.”

“Roger that.”

“We're in totally uncharted territory. So I'm going to give you as tight and precise instructions as I possibly can.”

She watched Karla settle a hand on the guy's shoulder. Up high enough to where she could trace a finger through the hairs on his neck. Reese found mild humor in learning this Marine had another notch to his gun.

Joss must have seen something in her face, because he drawled, “There's room for one more.”

“Let's be serious here.”

“Always am, when it comes to the ladies.”

“I am going to count you up. You will transit and remain here in the lounge. I will direct you to depart only if you can already see your safe return.”

Joss sobered. “This is new.”

“I told you. Everything about this is new terrain. So I will then order you to find Elene and direct her home. I will instruct you to be away for fifteen seconds only.”

“That's tight.”

“Fifteen seconds. And you are to hear the time counted down. No stretching it out at any level. Elene said in her debriefing that the instant you showed up, she remembered where to go and what to do. So you find her, you get in her face, you return. Clear?”

“Five by five.”

Reese hesitated, then added, “You're my number one, Joss.”

He met her gaze. “You go up there and do your job. I'll do mine.”